Justin Timberlake arrives at the 55th Annual Grammy Awards at Staples Center on February 10, 2013 in Los Angeles, California.

Who will take home the top prizes at the Grammys? Who will give the best live performances? And who will wear the most outrageous and stylish outfits? Speakeasy is live blogging tonight’s music awards, and we’re reporting live from the show and giving you our take on the TV broadcast as well. The show will feature performances from Frank Ocean, Alicia Keys, Maroon 5, Justin Timberlake, the Black Keys, Fun., the Lumineers, Mumford & Sons, Rihanna, Taylor Swift, Carrie Underwood, and Jack White. In addition, Elton John and Grammy nominee Ed Sheeran will perform together. Join the conversation here and leave your thoughts in the comments.

Matt Redman’s “10,000 Reasons (Bless the Lord)” won Grammys for the Best Gospel/Contemporary Christian Music Performance and Best Contemporary Christian Music Song. Well deserved: performance and song are inspiring.

Voters still stuck on veteran artists in the Americana category. Bonnie Raitt’s winning disk “Slipstream” is fine, but nominated albums by newcomers John Fullbright and the Lumineers are better fits for the category.

The live Grammy Awards show, at L.A.’s Staples Center, is primarily a variety show, with most of the broadcast dedicated to performances, interspersed with a relative handful of awards for major categories such as album, song and record of the year.

Earlier in the afternoon, it’s a very different picture as 70 awards are presented in genres from bluegrass to gospel to Latin jazz at the much smaller—and half-empty—Nokia Theater.

Despite the big electronic-music mashup at last year’s Grammys, all the electronic music awards this year are presented before the telecast.

Skrillex is the man of the hour, winning three prizes including best dance recording and dance/electronica album. Collecting the second award he calls up a massive posse of collaborators, agents and, seemingly, random audience members.

The pre-telecast awards conclude with another genre that’s become marginal in today’s scene: rock, in which the Black Keys take home album and song of the year. Black Keys guitarist Dan Auerbach, wearing a black leather motorcycle jacket, keeps his acceptance speech pithy, acknowledging that “everyone wants to get to the show.”

After winning the Grammy for Best Historical Album for “Smile,” Brian Wilson posts on Twitter: “I’m so happy I could cry. I guess Van Dyke and I were on to something after all. Thanks to the Boys for such beautiful vocals.”

Two points for the first person to spot producer Jeff Bhasker. He gave fun. the shot of steroids that helped them hit the pop homeruns on “Some Nights.” He picked Janelle Monae for the “We Are Young” cameo, helped shape Kanye’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, etc etc. (NPR profile here. )

Really rooting for Miguel to win song of the year, though it’s a long shot. “Adorn” is a great song, and he gave a great performance, but that jacket was unfortunate. Wiz’s suit, was groovilicious, like Bootsy Collins.

Mumford & Sons trivia. It took one year for their first album, “Sigh No More,” to reach No. 2 on the Billboard album chart. It finally got there after they first performed on the Grammys (in 2011) and stuck in the Top 10 for 20 weeks.

1 hour into the show, we’ve seen 3 awards and 5 performances by 7 acts. Oh, plus one of the “best new artist” nominees pointed out his band’s been plugging away for 12 years. I guess Fun. is new…to the Grammys!

In her speech accepting the prize for pop-vocal album, singer Kelly Clarkson underscored the unfamiliarity of some of the acts being highlighted. “Miguel, I don’t know who the hell you are,” she said, addressing an R&B singer who had earlier performed a steamy number. “But we need to sing together.”

Confidential to LL Cool J: You don’t have to *say* “hashtag” before every artist’s name when you’re talking out loud. This ongoing effort to show off the Grammys’ social-media savvy come off like some weird ironic comment on twitter conventions. I guess it’s conceivable that’s the idea…

Rihanna wore three, count em, three different outfits tonight, and hit it out of the park with each of them. What’s more, her voice sounded stronger than ever. She clearly has been taking singing lessons or taking them more seriously. She is my best dressed of the night. On the men’s side, Jay-Z and Justin Timberlake and the guy with the plaid suit from Fun.

Dispatches from the show: Earlier, on the red carpet, I asked Steep Canyon Rangers if they had any favorite female artists. After a long and sheepish pause, Mike Guggino said, “I like that girl band that plays with Jack White?” I mean, I can’t disagree!

Brutal timing. The-Dream just came into the press room at the exact second Prince came out. When winners come in, they cut the audio feed from the show and the journos all have to pop in these weird earphones to hear what’s happenign on stage. Ergo, I have no idea what The-Dream is saying right now.

Dispatches from the show: Sure-fire way to kill the moment–they are playing the Cee-Lo / Gwyneth Paltrow “Forget You” performance during the commercial break. That moment should’ve stayed buried deeply in the past.

Comments (5 of 74)

Will Taylor Swift ever learn to sing on key in a live performance?? Worst singer ever!!

12:11 am February 11, 2013

pathetic wrote:

Out of most of the performances only a handful were worth watching. Musicianship has taken a serious dive. But the worse performance I think I have ever seen in all the years I have been watching the Grammy's has to go to Frank Ocean's Forest Gump. That was absolutely pathetic and anyone who plays an instrument or has had signing lessons knows why. I can't believe American buys this garbage. I honestly may never watch the Grammy's again because of it.

11:36 pm February 10, 2013

helena wrote:

i loved Mavis- her energy lifted everyone

11:32 pm February 10, 2013

Anonymous wrote:

I don't know but I was looking for a little more. Feeling Mindanao cheated

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Speakeasy is a blog covering media, entertainment, celebrity and the arts. The publication is produced by Barbara Chai and Jonathan Welsh with contributions from the Wall Street Journal staff and others. Write to us at speakeasy@wsj.com or follow us on Twitter at @WSJSpeakeasy or individually @barbarachai.